“Einstein,
eh? You must be good at
math.” I hear that a lot. Just as I hear that I must love the HBO
series “Mad Men” because I was in the business back then. Wrong on both counts. I am almost totally innumerate. And “Mad Men” isn’t like it was
at all. 
It
was more like this.
Tiffany
& Co was among our name clients. Walter
Hoving, the proprietor was surely the shrewdest shop keeper on Fifth Avenue. He was also an aristocrat of another age with opinions he had
no hesitation about sharing via ads in Tiffany's franchiser position on page 3 of The New
York Times.
One December Citibank put an aluminum Christmas tree on Park avenue in front
of its offices. As I recall it was
about 20 feet tall, absolutely gleamed, and was bathed by blue and magenta spotlights after dark. It greatly offended Mr
Hoving who promptly wrote an advertisements denouncing
it. I was appalled by the tone of his
copy and ever watchful of our agency’s reputation said to Barbara who ran the
account “we can’t say this.”
“Well” she said, “If you don’t think we can say it you’d better tell Mr.
Hoving because I’m certainly not going to.”
A day later I was ushered into his intimidating
presence, ad in hand. “It sounds snobby” I croaked. He looked down at me and said with
great deliberation “young man, I want it
to sound snobby.”
Of course the ad ran. But I made a vow. “if he wants snobby, I’ll give him snobby.” And the snobbiest thing I could think of was ad with no
merchandise in it (this works well for large corporations, but given the option,
most retailers choose to put things that are for sale in their advertising ).
Expecting the worst we laid out the ad you see here. An empty ring box with a two word headline: ‘Mission
Accomplished.’ To my astonishment,
Hoving loved it. Tiffany ran it in
newspapers and magazines for several years - a happy advertising accident.
The
story came to mind a few months ago when friend Kevin O’Neill who teaches
advertising in the Newhouse School at Syracuse asked if I had a copy of the ad. Now, forty years after it was written he told me he uses it in class. Why? “I just love the freakin' ad, “ he said “and
have used it to illustrate a couple of things. First, the power of inviting the
reader to participate, to complete a story that the ad only suggests. In
this case, the reader provides virtually everything: the candlelight dinner,
the quick gasp as the box hinges open, the glint of the jewel itself. As
important, it's a splendid example of an ad that unleashes every ounce of a
brand's weighty history,
I flog my students about mastering a brand's back story, mining it for
clues to its meaning and, perhaps, finding useful elements for its contemporary
advertising. “
Nothing so thoughtful occurred to me at the
time. I was just trying to one-up
Walter Hoving.
PS: If you have a Mad Men story send it and I'll publish it here.